I kinda snooze at the thought of TOS novels because that’s not really my era of Star Trek (as of this writing anyway), but I got sucked into these Myriad Universes stories in which various authors explore the “what if?” side of Star Trek. Each story focuses on a different era available to them in the late aughts, from ENT all the way to VOY.
The first entry in the “Echoes and Refractions” anthology, titled “The Chimes at Midnight,” is a TOS movie era novella that certainly had me snoozing at first. It was just kind of recounting what I already know from the movies, except it follows an alternate timeline established in TAS in which Spock died as a kid and an Andorian named Thelin fills the role of Kirk’s XO. It picks up the pace midway through where it diverges into an exploration of what the Genesis device from the second and third movies could really mean for galactic stability.
But the author of this article does a much better job of describing the story’s merits despite the lackluster opening. They point out the critical role Spock plays in Star Trek both in-universe and to the audience, as well as how the World War II memories and fears that the original creators brought with them left out the ultimate question of how far the Federation would go to end the carnage of war. (Something explored a little more in later shows like DS9.)
I just finished playing this and it’s a fun little romp, but it’s interesting how straightforward it is for something that is so lauded. I feel like many of these older games are remarkable for what they accomplish in their time and place but coming at them from a modern sensibility just means they don’t hit the same way.
“Floating islands are common in Minnesota; it’s the size of this one that’s causing all the fuss. Sue Galatowitsch, a wetland ecologist at the University of Minnesota, says the island likely weighs at least 1,000 tons and could extend 30 feet below the water. Technically, it’s a floating bog. A natural assemblage of peat moss festooned with cattails and tamarack trees, the bog is more than four acres across—that’s about 64 tennis courts. ‘A bog that size,’ Galatowitsch says, “can kind of do whatever it wants.“
Residents of that area can suck it up and enjoy their new free bog-adjacent lives. Bogs are good, don’t fucking get rid of it just because you want to look at specific types of nature but not all nature. Nature wants bogs, let there be bogs!
